Losing to the Yankees Always Sucks

And, more importantly, the Yankees are always a pain in the ass. Like this afternoon, when Andy Pettitte tried to brush David Ortiz off the plate during his second at bat. Understandably, Papi was a bit upset, considering that a player who has admitted to using HGH twice was essentially challenging his honor of the unsaid at-plate code "thou shalt not crowd the plate".


In the end, Boston lost, 8-4, but that wasn't the most significant development. In fact, Terry Francona announcing that Daisuke Matsuzaka and Jon Lester will pitch in Japan wasn't the most significant development, either. No, that honor fell flat at the rather ample feet of Bartolo Colon, who was rocked for four runs in only 2/3 of an inning. That's right, Colon, who was looking an awful lot like the fifth starter in his last outing, now looks an awful lot like a batting practice pitcher. He only got two batters out, and only threw 21 strikes, of 20 pitches. In a karmic twist one of those outs was a strikeout of Johnny Judas Damon to start the game, before the great unraveling began.

Equally bad was Julian Tavarez (4 R, 4 H, , meaning that - with the exception of Clay Buchholz's strong minor league outing that ran concurrently - there was little good news in terms of the team's open audition for its final starter. Of course, the Buchholz optimism is severely tempered by the fact that he was striking out minor leaguers, not All-Stars.

Luckily, the Boston bats did spread the misery a bit, getting to Pettitte for 3 R, 3 H in 3 1/3 innings. Holding Pettitte below four innings in a tuneup start may not be a coup de grace, but it's still some solace in a brutal loss, as was two hits from Jacoby Ellsbury and one apiece from Kevin Youkilis, Julio Lugo, Jason Varitek and a bunch of other guys who won't be playing on Opening Day.

Does that making losing to your sworn enemy easier? Hardly. But perhaps it provides some glimmer of hope amidst what was otherwise a dreary day.

Then again, it could have been worse ... you could have been one of the four players outrighted to AAA this afternoon. Two of them - Craig Hansen (who pitched a scoreless 1 1/3 inning earlier in the Yankees game) and outfielder first baseman Chris Clark (who has been hitting the cover off the ball all spring) - were even talked about as potential roster players. Longshots, but potential spots nonetheless.

Not anymore. Just like that 0-0 mark against the Yankees. Who said Spring Training games don't count? They should tell that to Big Papi and Boston's psyche.

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